ERP Deployment made easy with Cisco Ethernet Switches

http://www.itcentralstation.com/node/29133

Any high availability and sustainable network is a prime and foremost obligatory requirement of ERP deployment, Cisco layer 2-4 switches are way beyond comparable when coming to robust, secured, sub- netted resilient network is required.

Strong Areas:

The catalyst switches give ease of configuration with comprehensive set of management protocol support mainly like Telnet, HTTP, CLI, SNMP and many more with CMS (Cluster Management Suite) and Cisco works, all together. Conventional fast Ethernet to Gigabit Ethernet connectivity with outstanding QoS, stackable fixed configuration, security features like static VLAN and TACACS with Radius Dial in authentication support where harsh environment, less maintained temperature, and less manageable environment like Tertiary care hospitals, Universities, Call centers, Tech labs and SMB’s

Limited manpower is the major factor in considerations. Productivity of mid line layer 2 switches (Cisco Catalyst 2950G) can be coupled by using in conjunction with Catalyst 4506 Ethernet layer 3-4 switch acting as core of the IP routing. 2 x GBIC I/O slots (standard) for gigabit Ethernet and single mode fiber channel is one of the distinct specialties in sub- netted network.

Possible Cons:

Cost is one of the substantial aspect for layer 2 supported devices like catalyst WS-2900 series as compared to HP networking device with HP 2900 series layer 2 switch.

Though Cisco provide lifetime limited warranty for their products like WS-2950G -48 switch but HP 2900 series is shipped with “As long as you owned the device with advance replacement in a very short time.”

I had experienced a network performance of gigabit network of 467 active nodes spanned across 29 catalyst WS-2950G-48 switches and inter-VLAN routed through Catalyst 4506 layer 3 switches with fiber optic backbone. Beside this I have had the experience of using HP 2920 switches which are less ragged and require a temperature moderated environment with less resilience as compare to cisco 2950.